


Errors in recrutement.

by TayBartlett9000



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Angst, Gen, Humour, Rant, Rimmer's diary, prior to the red dwarf series, recrutement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 08:16:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19103251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TayBartlett9000/pseuds/TayBartlett9000
Summary: Arnold Rimmer is angry. He has a new batch of recrutes to oversee as the third   engineer, but one recrute is driving him mad. That recrute is a man by the name of Dave Lister. Rimmer is starting to discover the many things he can't stand about this new  recrute and he is angered more by the fact that he has to share a room with him. What's a man of his intellect to do?





	Errors in recrutement.

I thought that my job on the Red Dwarf couldn’t get much worse. As if a man of my intelligence performing menial tasks as a  third engineer wasn’t bad enough, I now have a  new batch of recrutes to contend with. Most of them are alright, ish. They take  my orders as  people of the lower ranks should, but one  recruit is already striving to drive me, Arnold J Rimmer right round the bend and back again. Who is this recruit you may well ask? Well, I shall tell you. The recruit  who is causing me problems at the moment is a slob from Liverpool, a man by the name of David Lister.

Apparently, Lister’s joining  us on board  the Red Dwarf was a slight mishap on the part of Lister himself. I can understand why.  Such a thing could only happen to men such as him, slobs who probably can’t read anything more than his own  name. The idiot probably didn’t have a clue what he was signing up for. Oh well, more fool him.  Anyway, he joined our crew because he apparently had nothing else to do. Perhaps he needed the money or something. I wouldn’t know, I haven’t spoken to him beyond the usual issuing of orders, orders that he ignores. Why else would I speak to him?  If there was a man in my new crew of recrutes I would have wished to speak to, which there isn’t, then that man would certainly have not been Lister. He has the unfortunate habit of possessing a lot of funny ways that add up to include everything I dispise in a man. His slobbyness, his refusal to follow orders adequately and   the voice that grates on my very  nerves are possibly the worst. And I have to share a room with this man. Can you believe it? Can you believe that a man of my calibre should have to share a room  with a person like him? What did I do in a past life to deserve this? I wouldn’t wish David Lister on my worst enemy. Well, perhaps I would in truth.  I might have to go and see   Todhunter or Captain  Holister  and find out whether or not I can get him moved. Perhaps if I got Lister moved, he would take all of those lude and lascivious posters with him. I don’t want that rubbish hanging on my  cabin walls.  

The man  took to singing all night last night. It was driving me spare. Always the same bloody tune.  I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I’ll remember the words until my dying day. I think the  song has implanted itself in my brain now. ‘To Ganimeed and Titan, yes sir I’ve been around.’ An awful tune with an awful set of lyricks. To add to this, Lister has a bloody terrible voice,  like finger nales running down a black board. But again, one could expect nothing more from a slob around like Lister.

I tried my best to ensure that he knew who was boss. I made sure to let every one of the new bugs know precisely who was the boss man of the engineering section. However, Lister didn’t seem to think that I should have been in charge. He kept  giving me these    insolent looks and offering everyone some snide comments as if we wanted to hear them, which I certainly didn’t. The rest of the recrutes seemed to find it funny though. By the end of the first day alone I think that I had become a laughing stock, possibly the biggest laughing stock in the entire crew. And it’s all Lister’s fault. If he had just towed the line, then the rest of the crew wouldn’t have seen fit to follow his lead like sheep. I would have managed to keep together some semblance of order, but no. Lister had ensited a small scale rebellion on my watch. And it’s only day two. I can’t wait until this batch of recrutes are out of my way. Once they’ve gone and moved on, I shall be left in peace, although I’ll still have to put up with Dave Lister and his stupid annoying face, Dave Lister and his stupid annoying habbits.

 Oh ljord. He’s coming down the corridor towards this very room. I can hear him singing. I think that I can also smell curry  drifting through the gap  under the door. Pathetic. I hope he’s not going to sit here all  night singing. Or perhaps he’ll go a step  further and get out that  guitar of his. That would  possibly be worse. His guitar only has one string. The g note. All he does is sit there playing that note and singing badly. I swear to God, next time I hear him playing that guitar I’m going to take it off him and smash him over the head with it, or throw the damned guitar out of the air lock. Depends how I feel.

“Evening Rimmer,” Lister calls as he strides in, bringing with him that over powering smell of beer and curry, “surprised to see you on your own tonight.”

I shake my head in puzzlement. “What do  you mean?” I ask, “and bye the way, it’s Mr Rimmer to you.”

Lister neither apologises for his lack of politeness  or offers  me respect. He merely walks across to his bunk and collapses down upon it. “I just thought that you’d be spending a  pleasant evening in with Inflatible Ingrid.”

I can feel my face going red with the shame of it. Inflatible Ingrid. How in the hell does he know about Inflatible Ingrid? I can only assume that he has heard rumours from others stating that Inflatible Ingrid is the only female anything I have in my life currently. It’s an insult. That’s what it is. An insult and a bloody lie. I glance down at the frame of my own bed, glad that Dave Lister cannot see underneath it. No. No. He can’t see. Good.

“You’re not going to sing again, are you?” I asked irritably, throwing myself backwards until I am lying on my back.

Lister smerks. “Oh no,” he says kindly, “don’t you worry Rimmer.” Again with the blaightant lack of respect. When will this ape descendent learn manners? Probably never. Lister  is still speaking. “I’m not going to sing.”

I smile, glad that I am to be spared the awful song this night.

“I’m gunna play mi guitar.”

Oh  God. Oh, God. The guitar. Not again. I can’t cope with much more of this.

But alas, I am not to be given a repreave from Lister and his  God awful habbits. He is already  reaching across to a shelf above his bunk, pulling down his guitar with the single irritating string. He is playing it at once and I settle  back again, hands over my ears, determined that Lister will not poison my ears or mind this night. Even with my hands pressed tightly over my ears however, I can still hear that single note. The g note. Oh God.

And then here it comes, that single g note accompanied with an awful voice that is  exactly one hundred  percent out of tune. ‘To Ganimeed and Titan, yes sir I’ve been around.’ Day two and I want to kill  Lister already.  My mind goes into  overdrive as I ponder what I could do to him  tomorrow. He’ll have hell to pay in the morning.


End file.
